


Stalag 12

by Dillian



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (2012), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Anal Sex, Beating, Berlin Cabaret Scene, Consensual Male-Male Relations, M/M, Non-Con Male-Male Relations, Object Penetration, Prisoner-of-War Camp, Revenge Sex, Starving, WWII-Era Germany, Weimar-Era Germany
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-12
Updated: 2013-08-31
Packaged: 2017-12-19 06:46:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 10
Words: 15,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/880684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dillian/pseuds/Dillian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thor/Iron Man AU:  Tony is the son of US arms dealer Howard Stark.   He meets Loki (who is the second son of Odin von Borsohn, head of another arms company) in Berlin in 1931.  Then a long time later, they meet again.  This time Loki is the head of a German POW camp, and Tony is the downed flyer who is their newest arrival.  There is bitterness between them.  Tony bears the brunt of it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue: The Ulenspiegel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1931 was a very good year, for millionaire playboys, and cabarets in decadent European cities.

“You must remember this  
A kiss is still a kiss,  
A sigh is still (just) a sigh  
The fundamental things apply,  
As time goes by.  


And when two lovers woo  
They still say: I love you  
On that you can rely.  
No matter what the future brings  
As time goes by.“  
– Herman Hupfeld

**_The Avengers_ , _Thor_ , _Iron Man_ , and _Captain America_ , and all situations and characters thereof, belong strictly and solely to Marvel Incorporated. This is a fan-work, meant for enjoyment only, and not for any material profit.**

 

'31 was a very good year. It wasn't the last year Tony worked with his father... – He finally quit in '38, after Roxanne came back from Spain with both legs blown off, and he was the one who'd convinced his dad to sell the frag grenades to the Francoists. He'd said it was a good way to test the design before the big war they all saw coming by then. – But it was the last one when he felt really good about it. 

And Berlin was a very good city, or at least it was back then. -- Tony'd been to a lot of cities by then. Hell, he was just back from Paris (where he'd smoked reefer with Josephine Baker in Montparnasse, thank you very much) when his dad put him on the von Borsohn account. – Berlin was a revelation. They had things he hadn't seen before, at a time Tony honestly thought he'd seen everything. They had things he hadn't done before, that he found out he really liked doing.

There was this place called the Ulenspiegel, he went in there the first night he was in town: The band was playing what he'd learned to call “le jazz hot”, in other words, something that was only a couple years behind what you could hear any night of the week, back in New York, and there were a couple of beautiful black girls up onstage with nothing but feathers on (later on Tony got to know them better, and they _weren't_ girls). At a table on one side, he saw an old man and a couple of blondes with too much rouge on. On the other side there was table with an old man, sitting with a younger man, who also seemed to have too much rouge on. Then in front, there was a table with four girls sitting at it, and one lady with short hair who was flirting with all of them. It was... Well, it was a revelation. Put it this way, that was the first time Tony Stark had felt overwhelmed in 27 years on the planet, but it was a _good_ overwhelmed. He liked feeling that way.

The bar at the Ulenspiegel mixed a pretty good Manhattan (they also liked American dollars just fine, he found out later, one night when he forgot to get some marks before he went in). The bartender was this little dark-haired girl who was almost interesting enough that he didn't want to find a table. But she was busy as hell, no time for chatting up stray Americans, even the ones whose fathers were arms magnates. And besides, those pretty girls (not-girls) onstage were taking off feathers, and he wanted to find out what was underneath.

So Tony started out across what was a pretty crowded nightclub-floor. People were dancing and stopping at various tables to talk to their friends there. They were trading their Turkish cigarettes, and their drinks, and their dates. All the tables were occupied, but there was one over in a corner by the potted palms, and there was just one guy sitting at it. He was in evening dress, and he had his hair slicked back. He was facing the stage, but he didn't seem to be watching the show very carefully.

Tony pulled out the other chair at the table. Americans are supposed to be bold and brash, it's how Europeans expect them to be, and this wasn't the first time he'd taken advantage. “Mind if I sit down?” he said.

The other guy looked up. His face was thin, like knife-thin. – Think Barrymore, before the booze ruined his profile. – He was pale, and genuinely beautiful, in a way men usually aren't beautiful. He turned a nasty green-eyed gaze Tony's way. “Must you?”

It turned out Skinny Nasty-Look was the reason Tony was in Berlin. – His family, rather: He was one of the von Borsohns, but not the one that mattered. It was his older brother Thor who was being groomed to take over when Papa retired. Loki supposedly was going to handle Laufeyssen Produksjon in Oslo once the family took over, but everyone knew Helblindi was never going to sell. Loki _hated_ that, that he wasn't going to get the main company himself, but Tony saw Papa's point, all right. Loki had a secret (that he wasn't being so careful about hiding), the kind of secret that was pretty well made for blackmail.

The word's “homosexual” now, but in '31, most people called 'em inverts. Loki was an invert. He was a pure invert, the kind where they can't get any pleasure from being with a woman. – He used to _hate_ it when Tony would go with a woman, and it was quite obvious he was enjoying them as much as he enjoyed Loki. He couldn't do it himself, see, and he wasn't even good at pretending.

He was very snooty, in that European-aristocrat way, where if they don't have time for someone, they _show_ it. Loki wasn't a snob, it wasn't the lower classes he didn't have time for. It was women. Once he found out about the cabarets, and that he could find all the people he wanted there that weren't women, he just couldn't give them the time of day. This was a problem, because von Borsohn Fertigung was a family company from way back. There was no way Old Man von Borsohn was going to give control to someone who couldn't provide an heir. Thor got married some time in the '20's. At age about 21. To an heiress from Minneapolis, named Foster. They already had a kid, and another on the way. – Tony was at their place for dinner one night, and Jane was grotesque, like she was about to birth triplets right at the table. -- There was no way for Loki to match that.

It also turned out, Papa had just handed the reins over to Thor that night when Tony walked into the Ulenspiegel. They were having a big party about it at the von Borsohn Mansion on the other side of town, even as he brought his Manhattan over to Loki's table. It's why Loki was in such an evil mood (although he was always a cranky guy at the best of times). He'd come out determined to drink his troubles away, but so far all the schnapps he was pouring down hadn't done it. The last thing he wanted was... Well, he didn't have time for stray Americans any more than the bartender did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Roxanne (this probably matters to no one except the author) is Roxie Gilbert, a girlfriend of Tony's from the early years of the Iron Man series. I met up with her while reading _The Essential Iron Man_ vol. 5, where she is an ultra-liberal and he treats her like an absolute gentleman. Here, she goes to Spain to drive an ambulance for the Popular Front, or in other words, to fight on the other side from the one Tony sold the bombs to.


	2. Prologue:  Loki

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was a dying world, but Tony didn't know that. Maybe he would have appreciated it more if he did.

Well the thing with those overseas business trips, was there wasn’t usually much business to do. Someone had to be there to glad-hand the locals, and Tony wasn’t married yet, so he fit the bill. Dad used to go himself. -- There were stories you heard about when he did go. People think Tony’s a playboy? He’s nothing to what Howard Stark was in his day. That’s how he was until he met Mom, anyway. And how that happened, was he was in one of those South American countries, Venezuela, or Bolivia maybe... He was in one of those countries where the banana farmers always needed help controlling the locals at any rate, and when he came back, he didn’t just bring a contract, he brought a banana plantation heiress as well.

The trip to Berlin was easy. Dad wanted the contract, and von Borsohn wanted it just as much. He and Tony had to read it over before they signed it. A comma was in the wrong place, if Tony’s remembering right. And one of those dot-things Europeans put over some of their letters; umlauts, they’re called. Whole thing had to be re-typed, and that took a few days, and then Tony went back to von Borsohn’s office and the lawyers read it over again. His lawyers, von Borsohn’s lawyers... Von Borsohn’s secretary gave them coffee while they waited, in those tiny cups Europeans like, that hold maybe half a cup, maybe a quarter cup. -- _Coffee_. Real coffee, not ersatz barley and ground acorns. Served with lots, and lots of cream. There were pastries full of cream too. And jam. Von Borsohn wouldn’t have anything to do with them, unless they were full of raspberry jam. Just thinking about it now, makes his stomach growl so hard it hurts, but at the same time, he can’t seem to stop himself. -- ...Civilized, that’s the thing he’s getting at, okay? The whole thing was very, very civilized. ...Berlin was very, very civilized. And then he’d go from von Borsohn’s civilized office, to his son’s civilized nightclub, and they’d do things together that weren’t civilized at all.

The thing was, Berlin was an eating-town in 1931. And the von Borsohn’s were an eating-family. Everywhere he’d go... -- Thor used to take him to beer halls, with his friends: Sausages, they’d get, these huge sausages, and dumplings, shiny with grease. Old Man von Borsohn would ask him to dinner. You didn’t dare refuse. He was there to make friends for Stark Enterprises: Cream soups, and schnitzel, they’d have.. Roast chickens, and trout so fresh it curled in the pan when you fried it... Cabbage cooked with ham juice... There’s some more things it’s not easy thinking about any more. It’s easier thinking about the Ulenspiegel... It used to be anyway. Not so much, now that he’s here.

Nobody worried much about food at the Ulenspiegel. There were some sandwiches there. Looking back, he’s pretty sure you could get a sandwich there,and maybe a beer to go with it. Nobody went for the food, though. If you wanted food, there were a million better restaurants, right outside the door. You went to the Ulenspiegel for the entertainment. ...And for the company, you especially went for the company.

Women acting like men, men acting like women... -- _Women_ acting like women: You could pretty much get whatever you wanted there. Tony used to look around and ask himself what he was in the mood for. After that first night (when Loki was in a bad mood, and chased him away, and he ended up with the four not-girls with the feathers), he always went home with Loki, but that left the whole rest of the evening. There was a lot you could get up to at the tables, and in the bathrooms, at the Ulenspiegel.

There was this lady, this one night: She called herself a Baroness. -- Tony’s got no idea if it was true or not. She _should_ have been a Baroness, all stern looks and a stiff, Deutsche manner. -- She wore a pince nez, and an Eton crop, and a square-cut suit that hid the shape of her body. With a couple schnapps in her though, that woman came alive! She kissed like she couldn’t get enough of him, and when it was getting close to closing time, she offered to get a lot of her little Sapphic friends and they’d all go home together. Looking back, he probably should have taken her up on it, but it was 1931. He thought he’d have all the time in the world. He still thought there were going to be a million more trips to Berlin, and a million more chances to frolic with lesbians from the cabarets. Tony Stark in 1931, was stupid, because the writing was on the wall. All anybody had to do, was read it.

It’s hard to read much when you’re two sheets to the wind, though, which is what he was, most of the time he was in Berlin: If it wasn’t lager with Thor at the beer gardens, it was champagne and aged brandy with the old man at the von Borsohn Mansion. Or what it usually was, was schnapps with Loki, at the Ulenspiegel. They’d pour a few of those things down... People would start accumulating at the table. With every glass, Loki would relax more, until he finally got pleasant, and almost playful. Then he’d start getting cuddly. After that the main question, was whether they’d go home by themselves, or take somebody with them. -- There was this little skinny fellow with blondined hair. He’d had his front teeth removed, so he could... Well, let’s say there were things he could do with his mouth that were a revelation.

Cuddly Loki: It’s something else he doesn’t like to think about any more, but at the time, that was the reality. He was 19, maybe 20, in 1931, and at first glance, you’d think he was as sophisticated as anyone. He had that superficial manner to him, like all European aristocrats. He knew the right fork to use, and how to treat the servants, and where to go for a decent meal if you wanted one -- Loki usually didn’t. -- but underneath it all, he was just a little kid. The von Borsohns had raised their kids European-style. They didn’t see Mama and Papa much; it was the nanny that raised them, up in the nursery at the top of the house where nobody saw them. Thor and von Borsohn shared a lot of the same interests (sport, hunting, etc.), so he came down relatively quickly. Loki never did come down, not in the sense of really being a part of the family. As near as Tony can tell, first he was a little kid up in the nursery, and then he was a jaded sophisticate at the Ulenspiegel, and never any stage in between. ...There’s a point here. The upshot of it, -- That is, the _point_ Tony’s trying to make here... -- is that Loki never really had a proper family life, not like American kids do. He was an adult on the outside, but inside he was a needy kid who just wanted to be cuddled, and all it took was a few glasses of schnapps, for that to come out.

So the end of the evening would be getting close, and he’d be really cuddly. “ _Now_?” Tony remembers saying night after night, “do we have to go home now?” -- They did of course, at least they had to go home soon, because the bar would be closing about then. 

“ _Now_ ,” Loki would always say with his lips against Tony’s ear (or his knee between Tony’s legs, and his hands -- Oh god, his _hands_! -- all sorts of places). “We have to go home _now,_ ” in that soft, European accent of his.

Home meant Loki’s apartment by the University. -- “Where all the Jews live,” people used to say; it sounded perfectly harmless then. -- He didn’t like going to the hotel where Tony was. He said there were too many Americans there. Pushing the door open, when they were both just itching to get their hands on each other, shoving past the Cubist paintings Loki’s artist friends would bring over, the stacks of books from his classes at the University... His trousers had these little fiddly buttons in front, _so_ hard to open when a man was excited (and he’d had a few too many schnapps before coming home). And underneath those, were these white undershorts with blue stripes. God, Tony used to think it would take until the next morning, just to get him naked!

“All over, Tony...” -- To-nee, so just the word was like a caress. -- “Kiss me all over.” That pale, pale skin of his... -- That skin that was soft, and so sensitive he’d shiver when you touched him. Tony would get his clothes off him, and they’d fall into Loki’s bed, and he’d give him what he was asking for: Kisses, lots and lots of kisses.

“My To-nee, my beautiful American.” Sometimes he’d use endearments like that, but mostly he liked to get the compliments himself. It would have to be, “Oh beautiful Loki,” this, and “my precious little Loki that.” Tony didn’t mind. He was used to inverts, who always wanted all the compliments the rest of the world never gave them. They all fucked like madmen too (because they didn’t get it very often), and Loki was no exception.

So they’d drop into bed, and all he’d be thinking about was getting inside him. Loki’d had it enough times that he was easy inside, like a woman is. Tony would slide inside and he’d give a moan. “Oh, Tony!” -- To-nee. -- “More, Tony, more.”

One thing about the camp, is there’s no shortage of male company. All men (on this side, and a 10-foot razor wire fence between it and the women’s side), an invert would have a field day. You get so you don’t want it, when you’re not eating very much though, and by 1944, there’s not much left even for the Germans to eat. 

Sex is like anything else, it’s a luxury. He had no idea, in 1931, how much of his life was built on luxuries. And Loki’s warm body under his was just one of the luxuries, for an American businessman in Berlin, that summer. ...And Loki’s mouth against his mouth, and his tongue against Tony’s tongue. ...And all the beautiful German boys they used to bring home.

...And the sun would be coming up sometimes before they were finished. And then they’d sleep for hours and hours and hours, and when they got up, Loki would send out for coffee and they’d have it with English-style hard toast, and raspberry jam. And he’d look at that perfectly chiseled profile, -- With the dark hair that was a little curly, and a little bit too long, and the way it fell across one high cheekbone... -- and he’d think: “This is mine. I can have him for as long as I want him.” Stupid Tony. Stupid Tony, in stupid goddamn 1931, when everyone was stupid. You don’t get anything for as long as you want it; there’s a time limit for everything.


	3. Stalag 12, 1944

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's hard for a man to keep his sanity, when the whole world is on fire, and he knows he's working for the company that makes the fuel. After leaving Stark, Tony joined the Army. Eventually, his luck ran out.

The 33d Fighter Wing is Tony's unit. – Because he joined the Army after he finally got fed up building weapons in '38, and Dad nixed his idea for a commercial airline wing for SE. – They're in the European theatre; they were providing support for the Allies in Italy, when he was shot down at the end of December, in '43. Hopefully they're still there. Or if they've left now, hopefully it's because that fat bastard Mussolini is out and Italy has surrendered. He's not sure how optimistic he should be here. Italy wasn't doing so well when he got shot down, but people can surprise you. Germany isn't doing so well on the Russian Front either, but Manstein managed to take Kharkov all right.

After Pearl Harbor, Tony was hoping he'd be sent to the Pacific. He'd had friends at Pearl Harbor. There was this WAVE on the Nevada, that he met in Honolulu when he got added onto Dad's invitation to the Governor's Mansion one time. She was pure dyke of course, like all the gals you met in the service in the '30's, but she was a ball of fire! He had a weekend pass, and she showed him this dive bar the night before he had to leave. They closed down the place, and he was asleep all the way back to the States the next day. She was killed in the attack, of course. And the girl she used to bunk with, a cute little redhead, who liked to party with men, even if she didn't like going home with them.

So, he was _hoping_ , for a chance to fight Japan... That's what he wanted. The brass had other ideas. They'd found out he spoke French and German see, so the next thing he knew, he was with the Twelfth Air Force in the Mediterranean. He got a nifty little P-27 Tornado (a Stark plane, natch), and a bunch of friends in his unit. – Also a lot of other new ones, when the 99th Fighter Squad joined them a year later, some really swinging cats from Harlem, who knew jazz better than Tony did, and also knew how to find reefer, even in Sicily. – He got to see what the puttanas were like once they hit Italy. It was...

Well, it wasn't like Tony thought it would be. And it should have been, because he'd talked to Roxanne after she came back from Spain. He knew that Hitler was throwing everything he could, anyplace where there was the teeniest chance of a Fascist victory. It still came as a huge surprise when he got to Malta, and it wasn't just Italians they were fighting, and no matter how many planes they shot down, the Luftwaffe just kept coming and coming. – It was also a surprise how the Brits just _hated_ them, and especially Tony, once they found out he knew Marshall Tedder and Vice Marshall Park personally, _and_ he was the son of the guy who'd sold the RAF their planes, but that's another story. – He did these bombing missions. He'd go out on a raid, and it would look like every plane in the sky had a swastika on it, and it'd feel like a huge victory just to get back to base camp with his own life. Then he'd wake up the next day and find out half the guys he'd been out with were dead, and they wanted him out on another mission as soon as he had breakfast.

So first it was Malta (and by the time the siege was lifted, the Brits were finally starting to give him and the other Americans some respect). Then they sent the 33rd to Italy in the summer of '43. He was protecting the ground troops. Not very well. What got to him during that one, was how many good guys were getting killed, and he just kept coming home and getting supper and waking up again in the morning. Then he got shot down. One minute he's up in the sky in his Tornado, the next, he's coming down, and the only question in his mind, is whether he's going to survive this. Then he did, and there were enemy solders on all sides of him, trying to decide if they should kill him, or pack him up with some others they had, that they were going to send to a prison camp in Stuttgart (Germany, you understand, because the Krauts knew by then that Italy was about to fall. They knew the Allies were coming for them next, and they wanted some bargaining chips).

He was piloting his own Tornado when he went into Italy. When he left, it was in an unheated train car pulled by a Kriegslokomotive. In December. And all he had on was his bomber jacket and standard-issue khaki pants. It took four goddamn days to make the trip. They let him keep the K-rations he was shot down with, but that was just one day's ration, and nobody brought him any more. Once a day, maybe every other day, they'd come and refill the water bucket. If they were feeling generous, they'd empty the latrine bucket as well. That was it.

And he and the others sat close together in there, just to get warm. There weren't a lot of them, just him, some guys from a camp in Salerno that they closed after the Allies invaded, and a couple of other sad sacks who got shot down when Tony did. Not much to fill a whole cattle car. Maybe they were scared Mussolini's government would fall and they'd all be rescued, if they waited until there were enough of them to send.

...The trip took four days. -- Did he say that already? -- They got out, and they were stiff, and they were tired. Tony's ass felt like it was going to fall off, from sitting on those goddamn bare planks (stained with cow shit) for four days, and being jolted around, by that goddamn Kriegslokomotive.

“Guess we're here.” It was Barton that said it. -- He's another one that's been with the Army since the '30's, a sharpshooter, who fought with General Alexander and the Fifth Army, at Anzio. – 

Pointing out the obvious? Maybe. A guy's got a right not to be so brilliant, with four days in a cattle car behind him, and the prospect of life in a German POW camp to look forward to. Tony wasn't feeling so great himself. All he could think about was that the last time he'd been in Stuttgart was in May of '35. There were some kind of mineral baths near there. He'd heard that they were good for sweating the booze out of your system, so he went there one time, after an all-night drinking session with the president of the Porsche company. Damn place stank like farts.

Well Stalag 12 didn't smell so good either. There's this _smell_ you get, anywhere where a lot of men are crowded together in not enough space, and there's nothing but outdoor toilets. That's how the camp smells, just this stink of unwashed bodies and outdoor latrines, and the lousy food they serve in the mess hall. Basic training at Brooks Field in San Antonio kind of smelled the same, but that was different. They were there for something good, and they knew when they'd get finished. Here, he's only here because he fucked up one day over Sicily. And even though everyone knows Hitler's going to fall, nobody knows when it will happen, or if any of them will be alive to see it by then.

So they went on in, and they met the other prisoners. Ranking POW at the camp, Colonel Rogers, is another American. Story is, he broke some friends out of a prison camp near the Danish border, then when he got cocky and tried the same trick again a couple months later, that's when he got caught. He'd been here about six months, when Tony got there. 

He's in the same barrack with Tony and a lot of the others. – It's the American barrack, apparently. -- He's the one that showed them the ropes. He showed Barton a place on the roof of the Sick Bay, where he can go when he doesn't want to be around people. – It's a sniper-thing, being up high, apparently. – He connected Fury (who's an NCO from the 99th), up with the other black soldiers at the camp, who are under his command apparently, rather than Rogers'. And he introduced Tony to this guy named Banner, who worked R&D at Stark New Mexico, and can talk technology better than anyone here.

He's also the one that told them about the Germans at the camp. Gruber's okay, he told them. Schulte, in the office, is a pansy (his word). You've got to watch out for Fleischer who keeps the dogs, and Koch, in the kitchen, can be bribed if you still have some money on you. ...He told them about the Kommandant: “He's brutal. He wants the barracks clean. He wants you in uniform, at all times, no matter what. And if he hears anything about escape... This guy Barnes got captured with me,” he said. – Barnes was his best friend, they found out later. – “He had some money, and he managed to bribe Tackman, who was in charge of the trucks. Colonel von Borsohn found out about it. I heard he got Tackman sent to the Russian Front. And Barnes...” He broke off. Later on Tony found out that his friend Barnes died in solitary, after a beating.


	4. Loki and Tony

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Somewhere underneath the new, Wermacht Colonel version of him, the schoolboy-Loki Tony once knew is still alive. This, he learns one cold January night, in an unheated office.

Loki von Borsohn: There was a name Tony hadn’t heard for a while. He hadn’t even thought about Loki… -- Let’s be clear here. He’d thought about him. There was a time right after Hitler took over, when Tony was in Germany on business. He heard what they were doing to inverts, how they were being arrested, some of them were ending up in prison camps. He thought about Loki then, wondered if he might be one of the ones who’d been arrested. The fact is though, Tony was a coward. He didn’t want to draw attention to himself by asking about an invert, for fear he’d get arrested too. They were arresting foreigners. Some of them weren't going home, either. So he left Germany without finding out anything,even though he felt bad about it. And after that, he didn’t let himself think about him.

And now here he was, Kommandant of a prison camp, and not a good Kommandant from what the others said. Where's the logic? How could something like that have happened? 

So everyone in the barrack quieted down, while Rogers was talking. They were thinking about their luck, getting sent here. – There are good POW camps too, you hear about them sometimes when somebody escapes. They were wishing they’d been sent to one of those, probably. – Rogers was thinking about his friend that got killed. And Tony was thinking about Loki.

And then very businesslike, Rogers said, “Inspection in ten, men.” And after that, everyone was polishing their shoes, and brushing their jackets. – Tony saw a box of brass polish going the rounds, and one of those celluloid things you put around the buttons on your jacket. – 

“What kind of deal is this? Inspection? At a prison camp” one of the other new kriegies said.

“I told you,” Rogers said. “Von Borsohn’s strict.”

There was a shout from outside: “Alle raus! Schnell, schnell!”

“Goddamn Kraut bastards,” somebody muttered. Banner it was, Tony thinks. Then they were all outside, lining up in the freezing cold, and the growing darkness of the January night.

There was the thud-thud-thud of feet approaching. Three little German non-coms came in. – Horst, Gruber and Schulte, Tony found out later. “Achtung!” shouted one of them, and all the kriegies straightened up like they were about to meet President Roosevelt.

Then another thud-thud-thud. Tony saw a flash of green that was a Wermacht officer’s coat. He caught sight of the hat, -- Those spit-and-polish perfect hats the Kraut officers wear, always set at exactly the right angle. – high off the ground (Loki was always tall). Then a mean gaze was looking at the prisoners, a _German_ gaze, like something out of the newsreels. And then the look changed, as those green eyes met Tony's.

“Tony…” Loki said, “Tony, warum bist du hier?” He sounded just like he'd always done.

You’ve seen _Casablanca_ , right? You know the scene where Bergman’s come back to Rick’s, and Bogart comes in and sees her for the first time? How his face goes slack, and he looks really old for a second? That’s how Loki looked. He’d aged… -- He _has_ aged. – ...He'd aged decades, in the twelve years since Tony’d seen him. His mind got scrambled for a minute when he saw that, because the Loki Tony remembered was a schoolboy. He used to look so young, young and decadent, like a little boy caught with his Daddy’s girlie magazines (only it wouldn't have been girls with him). 

Before he could get his mind around this new, strangely old Loki, a big hand dropped on his shoulder.  
Tony heard one of the non-coms saying, “Kommen sie mit.”

Tony followed him. – He didn’t see Loki any more. – They left the kriegie section of the camp and went over to the relatively plush side where the Germans were quartered, and into this cold, Spartan office. Loki’s office: His plain, wooden desk, with nothing on it but a pen-holder and a Nazi flag, and a pile of paperwork. His plain wood-paneled walls, with just a picture of Hitler, that he’s seen Loki look at sometimes since then. Tony always wonders what he’s thinking about when he looks at it. It doesn’t mean the same thing to him that all the other Krauts think it should mean, Tony thinks.

Little German non-com-boy left Tony alone in the office. There was time for him to look around, not enough time though, because all he could think about was the cluttered apartment he remembered from Berlin. Where had all the Cubist paintings gone? What happened to the guy who needed an African bedspread, and posters from the Cotton Club, and a signed sketch from Walter Gropius, just to make the place livable? How did he tolerate … _this_?

Then the thud-thud-thud that was Loki, outside his office door. _He walks like a Kraut,_ that’s what Tony was thinking, and he felt painful inside, because the Loki he remembered, wouldn't have. --

You know what he was thinking? There’s more than one way to kill an invert, is the thought that was going through his mind. You don’t have to round a guy up and send him to a camp, you can just destroy what’s different about him, inside his own mind. There’s more to it than that, a lot more; he’s found that out since then. But that’s still part of it, an important part. And if he manages to get free of this hellhole in time to help kick Hitler’s fat Prussian ass, Tony’s going to give him one more extra good one, in memory of the Loki that died after the Nazis took over, and he had to choose a side to survive. --

Then the door opened. Tony caught just a glimpse of his Nazi-face (the cold Wermacht-officer’s one he’d worn at inspection), before it changed, and softened, and he was reminded of _Casablanca_ again, of the part where Bergman looks at Bogart, and her eyes almost look like they have tears in them.

“Tony…” He came in the rest of the way while he said it, and he went to the sideboard where there was a decanter and some glasses. There was a rattling sound that was him pouring a drink. – His hands were shaking, it sounded like. – Then he shoved a glass of schnapps into Tony’s hand. “So many years,” Loki said. “I heard nothing, Tony, nothing!”

Was he going to say that Loki hadn’t written either? Were they ever on normal enough terms for him to do that? It’s hard to say now, after so much has happened. He doesn’t think so. Too much had already happened, and it had fetched them up here, not just estranged, but on different sides in this goddamn war.

“Loki…” What he did do, was he set the glass of schnapps Loki had just poured, down on the desk. – It toppled his goddamn Nazi flag, Tony noticed it out of the corner of his eye, and he was glad. Like he could get rid of this new, Nazified Loki so easily. – Before he thought about it, Tony took both Loki's hands. It felt right to do it.

And then they were looking in each others’ eyes. …And Loki’s eyes were green just like they’d always been, and he still had his same old habit of sitting on something so he’d be shorter than Tony, and he could look up at him. And it still felt natural to kiss him, when he looked up with his lips parted like that. And his mouth was still warm, and it still tasted like schnapps just like it always had.

And unbuttoning his Wermacht-jacket didn’t feel unnatural. – It didn’t. You have to understand that. As soon as he looked into those green eyes, Loki was Loki again for him, and all Tony was doing was just getting him undressed like he used to, just trying to get at his body. – His shirt underneath had lost all its starch by the time Tony got the jacket off. It felt like the old soft-collared shirts he used to wear everywhere, that Mama von Borsohn was always nagging him about. And he still didn’t help any at all, he just stood there and cooed soft little endearments while Tony undressed him.

And he didn’t bother locking the door before they did it on the desk. “My brother is Thor von Borsohn.” He was laughing when he said it, a hectic kind of a laugh, like he was grabbing for pleasure with both hands, before someone could come and take it away. “Who would dare arrest me?” –

Thor: Everyone knows that name nowadays, don’t they? It was Mjolnirs, the huge bunker-busters that he rolled out in ’42, that were in the news when Tony got captured. Maybe he’s got something new that they're using on the Allies now. …Maybe he’s… Well it _was_ a horse race, whether he or Dad would crack the secret of atomic weapons first. Tony would have laid good odds on SE, but it’s hard to stay confident when you’re not getting any news at all. Now he’s not so sure. –

“…Who would dare arrest me?” Loki said, with his same old arrogant intonation. And his hands were up the back of Tony’s shirt. – His skivvy-shirt by then, with “Fire From the Clouds” on it, and his serial number, in big, black letters. – And his mouth was against Tony’s neck. “Take me, Tony,” he murmured in between the kisses. “Take me again… -- I remember how you used to do it when we were in Berlin. There was never anybody like you.”

And Tony took him. Tony Stark of the 33rd Fighter Wing, downed airman way, way behind enemy lines, took the Kommandant of his goddamn Kriegsgefangenenlager. And he liked it. There, go ahead and blame him for it. It was just as good as before, it was…

Well, what it was, was _sweet_ , like something else was meeting besides their bodies. And when it was over, Tony drank the glass of schnapps he hadn’t wanted before. And Loki had another one, and he brought out some of what they have any more for delicacies, here in Germany. Some sausage that was mostly wood shavings, and some bread with the damp taste of pea flour, and oleo to spread on it. Tony thought about the fancy dinners he used to see Loki pick at, at the von Borsohn mansion, that Loki never used eat like his mother wanted him to eat them. He thought about the piles and piles of sardine and ham sandwiches, on everyone’s table at the Ulenspiegel, and he felt sad. Wrong, yeah. Whatever the Krauts have, it’s still a helluva lot more than they give their prisoners, or any of the people in the countries Hitler’s taken over. But it’s how he felt anyway; the truth doesn’t change just because you don’t say it.


	5. Tony's Choice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Late that first night after he arrived, that night in Loki's Kommandant's office, is when reality hits, and Tony has to choose his side for the rest of the War.

Loki's quarters were in a different building from his office. Looking back, it seems like that was crucial. If they'd just been in his bed from the beginning, if they'd never had to talk about going to his bed, everything would have been different. – Would it have been different though? Is that all it would have taken, is just having the decision already made for him? Maybe it just would have taken Tony longer, to make the same decision he did anyway. 

See sex on a desk has got to be really fast sex. It's all about the gratification; you can't really take the time for a lot of cuddling, because where will you cuddle? _How_ will you cuddle? So they just did it, that first night, Tony and Loki did it, really fast, and really hard. Then afterward, they put their clothes back on and they talked.

Loki could have talked all night, he thinks. It seemed like every time he finished a subject, he'd start another one, like he jumped, from subject to subject. What was happening in the art world, Tony? – To-nee. – Is it true what he heard, that Cubism's dead? – That night Loki forgot he was talking to Tony Stark, whose favorite school of art was the _Esquire_ centerfold, or he ignored it. That night, Tony was all of free Europe for him, where there were still new ideas and people could express them without being arrested. – What about this _Surrealism_ , that the Party says is so “decadent”? ...What about Jazz, Tony? ...And Fritz Lang, did he make it to America? Is he still making pictures?

Outside it got darker and darker, and after a while the rain was falling so hard you couldn't ignore it any more. Loki's office was just a little tar paper shack, and the sound of the rain on the roof got so loud they could barely hear each other talk after a while. – And there was a leak, right over the desk. Loki pulled a bucket out and put it there to catch the water, and after that there was also a plink-plink-plinking sound, the whole time they were talking. – It was unheated, so after a while Loki went and put on his Kommandant's coat again, and he brought another, a Sargent's greatcoat, for Tony to wear.

Then after a while it got so cold even the coats weren't enough. ...Well, what happened is... Remember, Tony had just spent four days in a cattle car, and he'd gone from there straight to the kriegie barracks, which were the worst-built, coldest parts, in what was a pretty poorly-built, cold place in general. And the coat helped (and deep down at the very back of his mind, he was already thinking that it was more than any of the other prisoners in this damn place were ever going to get, but he was able to ignore that, for a while at least), but it wasn't enough. After a while, the cold of the January night really started to penetrate. 

But he didn't want to say anything, because he was enjoying talking to Loki too. It was like... Well, the Nazis have had Germany locked down now, for 11 years, right? Nothing's supposed to get in, no “decadent” modern ideas, or “decadent” modern art, or music or anything. It gives this preserved-in-mothballs feel to the conversation, when you talk to them. It's like stepping back a decade, back before the War, when the world was free, and you could get a drink and talk about whatever you wanted, anyplace in the world. And it ought to matter that they're the ones that ruined the world for everybody else, but it doesn't. ...It takes a while before it does, anyway. That was the night before it mattered, and Tony wasn't in a hurry to let it end any more than Loki was.

But he did get cold. And after a while, just pulling up the collar of the Sargent's coat, and putting on the gloves he found in the pocket, weren't enough. And Loki was talking about Duke Ellington. He had a copy of “Stormy Weather” an import, that he'd gotten right after the Nazis took over, and he was going on and on about, oh, was the orchestra still together, were they making any new stuff? And Tony was thinking about how he'd seen them at Carnegie, and how you can't really call the new stuff they're doing “jazz” any more, it's more like some new, more interesting kind of classical music, and he wanted to tell Loki about it. But he tried to talk, his teeth started chattering.

And at once, Loki turned into Mr. Good Host. “My friend, I am sorry,” he was saying. “I have kept you up so _late_ , and it is so _cold_.” And he plugged in this little electric thing, and he was going to make them coffee. But it was already too late, the moment was gone. And when he got the coffee (which was the crap-ersatz stuff that's all they have left here), while he was cradling the hot cup, and feeling the warmth spread through his body, Tony's mind was already on what was going to happen next. He was thinking about going out into that rainy night, in nothing but his own airman's jacket, about going back over to the American barrack, and what everyone would say to him when he got there.

Loki kept on trying to talk for a while, but he was just pretending too. And after a while when he'd finished, he put his cup aside. “You will stay with me, Tony.” It was his princely voice, the voice of the sheltered kid whose been surrounded by power his whole life. And the power was real. – It is real. Von Borsohn's the biggest company in Germany, and Thor's personal friends with a lot of the top Nazi brass. You've seen the pictures in the papers, right? And the newsreel footage? – Tony heard him say it, and he was very aware that this was a real option. He really could stay here. This could be his life for the rest of the war, living here with Loki, enjoying the relative comforts that came from being with the Kommandant.

...To be a kept man, in other words. To be Loki's gigolo, his possession, like his office, and his desk, and his goddamned warm officer's coat, while better men were freezing on the kriegie side of the camp.

“I can't do it.”

Loki already knew that's what he was going to say. You could tell, because although he looked upset, he didn't look surprised. His mouth came open, – That mouth of his, all reddened from Tony's beard stubble. – and his eyebrows drew together. He didn't speak for a minute. Then he walked over to the window and looked out at the rain. “Your American friends will crucify you,” he said with his back to Tony. “They will be merciless when they find out where you've been.”

He was right too; they did. The Army's full of men who came from nothing, and have nothing to look forward to. They always hate it when they find out somebody's different, that they might have some prospects after the War. Tony's been fighting that battle ever since he joined up. This was the worst, though. – He knew it was going to be the worst then. Think about it, here's this guy who doesn't just know the Camp Kommandant, he _knew_ him, in the Biblical sense. So right away he's not just somebody with important connections, he's setting himself out as a queer. He pretty much had to fight each and every guy in the barrack after he went back there, just to get a minimum of respect. Even so, there's a good chance he'd be dead by now, if Col. Rogers didn't take his job of protecting him seriously.

“You'll punish them if they get out of hand.” Tony made his voice cruel, like Loki's had been. When Loki turned around and there was hurt on his face, he felt a mean little bit of satisfaction, deep down inside. “I've heard what you do,” he said.

Loki nodded. His face was pale, but he still looked like Tony's Loki. It was this sad, little-kid face, this _prewar_ face. He looked sad, and as he spoke, he started to look scared too, and he talked faster and faster. “This is my camp, Tony. You will be my prisoner if you go. -- Don't go, Tony, don't be my prisoner.”

There was good enough reason for him to be scared. – There was better reason for Tony to be scared though, only he didn't let himself be scared, because he couldn't let himself. If he'd thought about what he was doing, he might not have done it. He might have turned back and then he'd have spent the rest of the War as a Nazi Kommandant's kept man. What would have been the point of leaving SE then? His dad at least, works on a side that's got a little decency to it. He's defending freedom, even if he is doing it by building machines to kill people. 

“You know I can't do that.” He was slipping out of the Sargent's coat while he said it. He went to hang it on the coat rack by the door, but his hands were shaking some, and it fell off. There was some rain that came in when he opened the door, and it got wet, not just the hem, but up around the shoulders and the collar. “Sargent's gonna be teed off when he sees his coat got wet,” Tony remembers thinking (probably to keep from thinking about other things). “Where's my jacket?” he said out loud.

Loki jerked his chin toward the chair by the desk. “Get it,” he said. “If you behave yourself, I will permit you to keep it.” Kommandant-words. But he didn't have the tone right yet; his voice was shaking, like he might cry if he wasn't careful, and his face was still filled with that awful sadness, and the fear. “Go back to your k-kriegies, To-nee.” That's the last time Tony's heard the voice of his prewar Loki.


	6. Friends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony had to fight to get the others to accept him, but after a while he managed. For a while there, Loki even let him think he could keep his new friends.

Looking back, there's a sad, kind of a sentimental feeling about those first few weeks at the camp. Which is funny, because the first one at least, was about the loneliest week Tony's ever spent in his life. The whole time, it left him thinking about when Jarvis dropped him off at boarding school when he was 8, how some of the other boys bullied him, while others cozied up to him just _because_ he was Howard Stark's son, only they were so obvious that even a kid could tell, and it didn't feel any better than the bullying. ...How he used to wake up expecting his parents to be there, and every time he went past the Headmaster's office, he'd walk slower, because he was thinking maybe they were in there and they'd come to take him home. It was worse at the camp though, because Loki really was right there. He'd still have taken him back, Tony's very sure of it, at least he would have those first few weeks. All it would have taken was him being willing to crawl, and sometimes when the other kriegies were making their displeasure felt with him, the temptation to crawl got well nigh unbearable.

He didn't do it though. Rogers interrogated him the first morning after he'd been with Loki. All the other prisoners watched, probably hoping he'd confess something they could use against him. – Why? They couldn't have thought he'd gotten almost to 40, and never learned how to hold onto his privacy? – Then there followed about a week when the _only_ person who would have anything to do with him was Banner, and that was only because he was his source of information for everything SE had been doing since he'd been captured.

That was the week all the other guys had to torment him, every chance they had. He'd be getting ready for Inspection: “Got any shoe polish I can borrow?” he'd say, looking at the guy with the can in his hand, and his rag already full for his own shoes. “Nope, sorry, Stark,” the others would all say. They also never had any brass polish, or tooth powder, or soap. They were never done with the flatiron when he needed it. Nobody ever had an extra needle or some sewing thread if a button came off his uniform. But then God forbid if he showed up unprepared at Inspection. They always shoved him out of line, that first week, but that was when they'd shove hardest. If he fell on his face in the mud right at Loki's feet once, he had to have done it ten times. And then Loki would look down at him like he was garbage.

“ _Insubordination_ , Prisoner Stark.”  God, the _pleasure_ there'd be in his voice! Another chance to punish him for... For hurting _him_ , was that why? Because he'd walked out on him? Was that why it was, or was this still some kind of twisted trick that was supposed to make Tony come back to him?

He'd be set to work: Carry those rocks, Stark.  Dig a hole there. Oh, you've dug it? Now fill it in again double-quick. Anyone whose made it through Basic Training knows the drill. The idea is to break your spirit, and they'll keep it up however long it takes to do it. So that went on for about the first week. Five days in a row... – Or was it six? – Day after day, he'd be out in the rain at the rockpile, or trying to get his goddamn hole bigger, while half the water in Stuttgart poured down and sent the mud careening in to fill it back up as fast as possible. Then on the sixth day, he barely managed to make it back to the barrack in time to get ready for evening Inspection. His shoes were covered in mud, but of course there was “no shoe polish available,” when he asked the others for some help. His shirt was soggy, but of course the flatiron was “too busy” and nobody had another shirt he could borrow, so he ended up going out just as he was, soaked, and muddy all over.

And then the guys shoved him out of line just like they did every night, and he fell again, right at Loki's feet. And Loki stopped. “Oho, Prisoner Stark...” That mean, Kommandant's voice of his, that voice that said, “You are nothing to me, except an object to punish.” That voice practically made him cry. Weak? Yeah. But six days of punishment from all sides will make a guy weak. “Your _continued intransigence_ is an embarrassment, Prisoner Stark,” Loki said. “I see we will need to try something different to get through to you.”

“Something different” was the cooler. Have you ever driven Route 66? You know, the road that goes west from Chicago, all the way to the Pacific? You remember the diners and gas stations all along the road, that are there to catch the tourist trade? The signs for the “Clean Restrooms”, that are always little cinder block buildings, set apart from the main gas station, with the one little lightbulb up in the ceiling inside, that's just enough so you can't quite see the cockroaches, running across the “clean” floor? That's what the cooler's like at Stalag 12, except instead of being hot from the Texas sun inside, it's usually miserably cold, from the snow or the rain of a German winter. Tony did one night in there the first time, then as soon as he got out, the men shoved him out of line again and he immediately earned two more days.

Is that what it took though, before the others accepted him? Was that what it was that got it through to them that he wasn't Loki's kept boy, sent to spy on them? It's after that, that things started to change, at any rate. The night after he got out for the second time is the first time anybody ever did anything to help him. Rogers was there waiting when he got out, and the first thing he did was to shove a mug of hot coffee into Tony's hands.  After that when it was time to get ready for Inspection, he made sure he got the shoe polish he needed, and a chance at the flatiron, and that was the first night nobody shoved him once he was in line.

It's after that that he started really getting to know the others. That's when he found out about Fury's father, who fought for the chance to be in combat, after he was assigned to a labor battalion during the Great War. It's when he started to hear Barton's stories about being a sniper, and how he got assigned to that duty because he used to perform as a sharpshooter in carnivals, back when he was a kid. ...It's when he started really being friends with Banner, not just talking SE, SE, SE, but _really_ talking, about their pasts, and why he chose to join the Army, and the anger problems that have kept getting Banner busted down, so he's still a Corporal, even after 20 years with the Army. It's when Rogers began relaxing with him, and showed him pictures of the 98-pound weakling he used to be (and started the preaching about _Health Food_ , and soybean oil, and how nobody's really healthy if they're not drinking milkshakes with powdered liver that he never did really let up on). It was a good time.

Of course, it didn't last. Looking back, he should have known it wasn't going to. He'd gotten away from Loki, see? He was still spending his days busting rocks and digging holes, – He was still going to the cooler a couple times every week. – but he'd gotten away from him. And he had somebody else in his life now, a whole barracks full of somebody elses. That wasn't going to fly. He should never have expected it to fly. But when a man gets to feeling comfortable, it's normal for him to expect that to last.


	7. Corporal Schulte

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As an escalation in his war with Tony, Loki gives another man permission to hurt one of his friends.

About a month went by, and his fight with Loki escalated. – _His_ fight. There's a joke. Loki's fight with him, it was. – Tony came out from what must have been his tenth stay in the cooler one night. He went back to the barrack, and Rogers had a message for him: “Corporal Schulte wants to see you in the office.” Schulte, the so-called “pansy”. Tony had thought that was just more of the prejudice he's seen his entire life, where people make assumptions about a man because he's unconventional. Turned out when he got to the office, all the stories were entirely justified.

Schulteis one of these nondescript, balding fellows, the kind like Heinrich Himmler, where the newsreels always say he looks like a chicken farmer. Tony went into the office to meet him, and as he went through the door, he could feel Schulte's eyes all over him. A man learns that look, the one where if you were doing it to a woman, you'd say you were “undressing her with your eyes.” It's not as normal to get it from a man, but it happens, more in some places than others. Schulte looked at him like that. Then he smiled a little. “The Kommandant told me to ask if you had changed your mind.”

“Changed his mind...” Tony looked at the man, but he couldn't tell if Schulte had any idea what it was he would be changing his mind _about_. How much would Loki let on to a subordinate like this? How free exactly was he, Thor von Borsohn's brother or not?

His answer was clear, though. He shook his head.

Schulte's smile brightened just a little. This was the answer he'd expected, an answer he seemed to enjoy. “I have been asked to educate you.” He pressed a button on the desk.

In came a guard. “Ja,” Herr Unteroffizier?”

“Ich möchte den Kriegsgefangener.” Schulte looked at Tony. “The Kommandant asked me to choose someone who mattered to you. He said he would be mine, if you... – What is it he wants of you, Kriegsgefangener Stark? I would suggest that you give it to him now. He is not usually so generous as to give a prisoner the choice.”

A click of the guard's boots, one of those shouted responses the Wermacht loves so much, “Sofort, Herr Unteroffizier!” The guard disappeared for a moment, then returned, shoving Banner in front of him.

Banner... It had to be him. Rogers meant more to Tony, Loki had to know that, but he was also the one who could stand it better. Banner, with his history of anger... The way he'd never gotten used to the Army, much less to the camp, the desperation that Tony had seen in how he'd latched onto him as soon as he'd shown up here... He saw Banner looking at him. Just a quick look, with fear in his brown eyes. Then the guard hit him a good one on the back of his head, and he looked down. 

“Tell the Kommandant he's going to burn in Hell for what he's doing,” Tony said, “and for what you're doing as well.” ...The Hell he'd never believed in, or Loki either, for that matter. He looked at Banner. “I'm sorry.”

“It's all right, Stark.” Banner didn't lift his head. “I know you're not the one doing this.”

Wasn't he? It didn't seem so clear to Tony. He looked at Schulte, who was getting up from his desk now, smiling in a way that was uncomfortable to watch. “May I leave now?” 

He wasn't allowed to, of course. That would have defeated the point of this. It took two guards to drag Banner over to Schulte's desk. It took three to hold him there, while a fourth undid his belt and ripped his trousers down around his ankles. Banner fought hard. Tony finally got to see the rage his C.O.'s must have seen, that had gotten him busted down so many times.

“You fucker!” That was when his trousers came loose. He had his head turned almost completely around so he could shout at the guy. “Fucking shit... Fucking _Gefängniswärter_...” Then when Schulte came over, he kicked his feet back at him, until the fourth guard had to grab one leg and help hold him in place.

“Fucking Schulte... Goddamn rat-bastard...” Banner's curses were an undertone the entire time. 

Schulte didn't even pay them any attention; that must have been how he expected a kriegie to act when he was brought in here. He took his time, taking off his jacket, then hanging it carefully over his chair, undoing his own belt and removing his trousers and setting them aside neatly so they wouldn't get stained by what happened. “I remember noticing you when you came in, Kriegsgefangener Banner.” He touched Banner's buttocks, ran a hand along the curve of them, as he spoke. “You did not pique my interest, but now, since the Kommandant has asked me to educate this arrogant American...” -- A small, smug little gesture Tony's way. – “I believe I would like to give you a try.”

“Take me.” He'd like to think he said it out of concern for a friend... The truth is, it was probably some of the same arrogance Schulte was talking about. Tony had enough on his conscience for one life; he didn't want to be responsible for Banner's destruction.

Not that Schulte considered his request at all anyhow. “ Kriegsgefangener Stark,” – His voice was a reprimand. – “you are a prisoner. Do you dare give orders?” Out came his hand again; again more stroking, along Banner's exposed buttocks. Every time he touched him there, Banner gave a faint gasp. This only seemed to make Schulte happier.

“You and the Kommandant are playing a dangerous game.” Tony had to try once more. He couldn't ...not try, not with Banner spread-eagled there on the desk in front of him. “You know the laws your goddamn country has in place against inverts...”

Schulte didn't even turn around. “You are making wild accusations, Kriegsgefangener Stark,” he said. “An 'invert', as you call it... – You mean a _homosexuelle_? There are no homosexuelles at Stalag 12.”

He was fully hard; Tony could see it from the angle where he was standing. Of Banner, bent over the desk, all he could see was his exposed buttocks, his bare, defenseless body, held in position by the four guards. “I am a married man, Kriegsgefangener Stark.” As he spoke, he gestured backward. One of the guards let go of Banner for a moment, to put a riding crop in his hand. “My wife and I have been very happy for 20 years, not that it is any of your business.” With one hand, he parted Banner's buttocks. The other positioned the riding crop. --

Looking back, it was right before the crop went in, when Tony was closest to giving in to Loki. What would it cost, after all? He would still have the respect of the others, wouldn't he? His own self-respect was in bare shreds; what was it worth, he wondered, if it had to be purchased at a cost like this? -- 

It was just for a moment that he thought it. Then the crop went in, and the moment was past. Banner shrieked loud enough to be heard outside. Somewhere in his quarters, Loki had to have heard. Tony _hoped_ he'd heard. He ought to know what he was allowing his men to do. It was not a small crop, nor was the end narrow in any way. Shoving it in like he did, Schulte had to have been causing Banner unmentionable pain. Banner shouted more insults, but these were mixed with moans, and a few sobs. 

Schulte just chuckled. “I am _preparing_ you, Kriegsgefangener Banner,” he said. “You should be grateful.”

“Preparing” him. The only thing he was “preparing” him for was a good week's worth of agony after this was all over. Tony'd known plenty of men who were raped. – Mostly inverts, caught by a gang of men who called themselves “normal”, even though they got most of their pleasure by grabbing helpless pansies and forcing themselves on them. – He knew the effects.

After a while, the crop came back out and, with it, a little trickle of blood, running down from Banner's back end. There was Schulte's pleased little murmur, “Now that I have you ready...” There went his body close, the five or eight inches of his hardness burying themselves inside Banner's body.

There were no more screams. – Banner had been “prepared”, after all. – Even the obscenities and insults had died down to just a low mumble. Tony watched while Schulte took his pleasure. He didn't rush it any, the bastard, and the rutting gave him enjoyment, that was evident from the pleased little grunts he made. After a while, he was done. He pulled away with a satisfied gasp, then looked down at the guard nearest his right foot. “Get me a towel.”

“Sofort, Herr Unteroffizier,” came the response.

Schulte didn't let Tony go to Banner to clean him up, or help him back to the barrack until he was completely dressed and sitting behind his desk again. Once there, he watched both of them with calm amusement.

“You don't think this is over, I hope?” That was his farewell, and Tony shook his head. “Your friend amuses me and, with my wife so far away, I need a source of amusement.” He laughed, a small, self-deprecating laugh. “I will keep him for as long as I am amused. That is...” A questioning look at Tony. “That is, I will keep him unless the Kommandant tells me otherwise.”


	8. Tony Returns to the Kommandant

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony knows exactly what it might cost him, when he goes back to Loki, but he knows what it will cost his friends if he does not go, as well. -- **Edited Chapter: I hope this new version reads well. It takes the story where it needs to go, which the other version did not, and that is what matters to me.**

It was about three days after Banner's... – What would you call it? His deflowering? His _initiation_? – ...The first time Schulte raped Banner: It was about three days after that, that Tony knew he had to go back to Loki. That would have been in February, in that very rainy February, his first winter in Stalag 12. 

Tony was outside having a smoke. It was dark outside, and there was a steady drip, drip, drip of rain. There was this place in a corner, near the big drainpipe; that's where you stayed the driest, and it's where he was when he saw Rogers coming.

It was his cap, he saw first, that sad infantry officer's cap Rogers got captured in, the brim dented by now, and the wool so threadbare it couldn't have helped any to keep him dry. Tony never saw that thing, but he'd think about his closet back at home, and all the hats he had in there. The homburgs... – He didn't even like homburgs, but they were what the Board expected when you showed up for a meeting. – Soft, felt hats, those were his choice, and he must have about a dozen of 'em, just taking up space now, and doing nobody any good. Them there's the Stetson, big, ten-gallon thing; SE Austin had it for him as a present once, when he visited in 1933: That's the one that would stick in his mind, how it would have kept Rogers' head dry for a change.

Well, the light from the security lanterns hit that ruined cap of his first, then Tony made out Roger's face, a friendly smile on it as usual, and a shadowed look in his eyes. “Hey, Stark,” he said.

Tony pulled out the pack of Luckies that was his share from the last Red Cross package. He shook one out, then offered the pack. Rogers shook his head. 

“Not for me.” Instead, he pulled out the old Prince Albert can he used to carry around. Tony never did know what he kept in there. German tobacco, presumably, since the Red Cross never sent any loose. Maybe he took his share of the Lucky Strikes back apart and rolled his own cigarettes out of that. ...He took the can out and rolled himself a thin, floppy-looking smoke. All the time he was doing it, then lighting it, he just stood there, him on one side of the drainpipe, Tony on the other. Finally, and only after he'd taken a few drags on his hand-rolled cigarette, he turned.

There was the red tip of his cigarette, his blue eyes, shadowed by the cap, just faintly shining above it. “I'm worried about you, Tony,” he said. 

It felt like another burden. Tony looked into the darkness, watched raindrops fall through the light where the security lanterns were. “Me,” he said. “Not Banner?”

Tony heard a faint snort from Rogers. “It's you the Kommandant wants. Banner's just a way to get to you.” It was more plain-speaking than Tony had expected, more than he knew how to answer as well, for that matter. After a couple minutes' of his silence, Rogers spoke again. “I don't know why he wants you,” he said, “Guess it has to do with whatever happened between you, before the War.”

“You want to know what happened before the War?” It was defensiveness in his voice, but it was something else as well; there's something about Rogers that's always seemed to make people tell him things.

Rogers cut him off, though. “I figure that's your business. What worries me...” He looked up at Tony, the Prince Albert can turning in his hands as he spoke. “If I was you, I'd be telling myself I could stop what was happening to Banner, if I went back to my old friend and asked nice enough.” Tony licked his lips. It wasn't the truth, but it came awfully close. “It won't stop,” Rogers said, “no matter what you do. Von Borsohn's changed, since you came here, – I think he's changed because of you. – and he wasn't too good to begin with.”

Tony never knew it was going to matter _what_ Loki was. Loki was part of his past, not even thought of, until he came here, and suddenly his whole fate depended on him. Sometimes he still gets stuck trying to wrap his head around that one. Did he change, Tony wonders, or were the seeds of the Loki that ended up hell-bent on destroying him, in there from the start? And does it even mater any more, since he's managed to survive him?

“You know I'm going to him,” he said.

Rogers nodded. “Of course.” 

“If anyone's going to be destroyed, it'll be me...”

A snort from Rogers, faint, almost fond-sounding. “Like I said, of course. – Hey, maybe you'll be lucky,” he said. “Maybe Von Borsohn will remember what good friends you were, and go easy on you."

But there was never an ounce of hope in Tony's mind, that that would happen. It was raining again the next day when he went back to Loki's office. Mid-February, that must have been. It wasn't Valentine's Day, but it wasn't too much afterward; there were still a few of cookies left, that one of the guys had made out of a couple of Hershey bars and some of that goddamned Kraut pea flour. Tony drew his jacket tight, and pulled his cap as low as it would go over his eyes, but he was still wet by the time he got to the German side of the camp.

There was no automatic welcome when he got to Loki's office this time. Schulte, in the outer office, looked him up and down, with a smile on his face that said he knew exactly why he was there., and he made him wait a good half an hour before he bothered to tell Loki he was there. After that, there was another long wait. Then, when Loki finally deigned to see him, Schulte gave him a shove as he walked into his office, that sent Tony sprawling.

Stumbling, Tony saw a look cross Loki's face. It wasn't malice. That was there later; it was there a lot, all through the time they spent together. This was different though, painful almost. It was gone again too, by the time he was back on his feet.

Tony sat, uninvited. Loki frowned, eyeing him over tented fingers, his elbows on his desk. “Why are you here, Prisoner Stark?”

“You win, Loki,” Tony said. “I'm yours.” He gestured. “Whatever that means. Just leave my friends alone.”

“Your 'friends'...” He saw Loki's lips move, echoing the words. He didn't like the phrasing. Any minute, he was going to refuse, just because of how Tony had phrased it. “Your 'friends' mean so much to you, eh? Enough that you'd come back here? But you must have known what I'd do?” He still didn't look greedy, and there was no taunt to his words. Instead, he sounded like he was testing him, like he was still trying out roles, for himself as well as for Tony. 

“What will you do?” Tony looked at him. For a moment, Loki looked back, their eyes meeting, and the look in Loki's was anger and confusion.

Then he looked away. “You will belong to Schulte.” The words were halting-sounding.

They were the ones Tony had expected to hear though, the ones he'd dreaded hearing, all the way over here. He swallowed. “As you command, Herr Kommandant.”

He'd thought the formal words would please Loki, but there was no sign of it. He looked away, , his breathing quick and uneven. “The world has changed,” he said finally. “Your ideals are dead, Tony. Why couldn't you just give them up before, when I asked you?”

“Ideals?” Funny, he was so self-righteous, as he said it. Where's all that self-righteousness gone since then? “Like not living in luxury while my buddies are getting tortured?” 

There was an intake of breath from Loki. – Tony thought suddenly of what was happening to all the other inverts in Germany, right now. Was that what he was thinking about too? About how comfortable his life was here, while his own old friends were being tortured? – All he said though, was, “We don't _torture_ people at Stalag 12.”

“Yeah, like Schulte 'not torturing' Banner the other day.” 

Loki drew an audible breath. “And now he will 'not torture' you, the same way,” he said. “What have you gained, Prisoner Stark?” 

He can look himself in the face at night, and not feel sick to his stomach. Looking back, that's all he's gained, and sometimes it doesn't feel like much. Tony doesn't like looking back though, because it reminds him of what Loki _lost_. Sometimes it really seems to him that there had to have been a way they both could have come out ahead in this. Maybe it was already too late for that when he got to the camp, though.

“I'm all right with my choices,” Tony said. “Just a little scared, maybe. Your Unteroffizier Schulte is pretty rough.”

“In what way?” That's when something seemed to click inside Loki, like he'd given Tony one last chance to avoid his fate, and it had been refused. His voice was cool now, and faintly, condescendingly amused. “Your record of insubordination is well-documented. Some roughness of discipline will be necessary to correct it.”

“Yeah.” Tony looked into Loki's face as he said it. “That's all there is going on here, right.” If he thought he'd see any emotion left though, he was wrong. “You're playing a dangerous game,” he tried. “How much do you think you can get away with, just because you're Thor's brother?”

Loki gave a faint, irritated snort. “I serve a valuable purpose here, Prisoner Stark, more so than you have ever done, whatever high ideals you pretend to. I suggest you get out.” He stood and, as he stood, it seemed like he leaned toward Tony, just for a moment, as though he couldn't help himself. Then he straightened. “Schulte is expecting you. I will have one of the guards fetch your things from the American barrack.”

“And my friends?” Tony had to ask it.

Loki held his gaze. “Your precious 'friends' are under my protection.”

It sounded like there was more protection there for his friends, than there was for him. But wasn't that the point of why Tony had come over here? He bowed his head. “As you command, Herr Kommandant.”


	9. Under Schulte's Authority

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony went to the Unteroffizier, but it turned out Schulte had other plans for him than he'd expected.

He actually only did it once. Schulte, that is. If you've followed the story this far, you have to have been wondering if our friend the Unteroffizier was going to do to Tony, what he'd already done to Banner. He did. Once. Even though Tony really got the idea it was supposed to be an ongoing thing; that's certainly what Loki had implied when he said Tony “belonged to him” from now on.

Apparently everything can't be controlled by top-down orders though, even in Hitler's Aryan Utopia, and a Kommandant telling a man he has to feel desire for such-and-such an American Lieutenant Colonel doesn't necessarily translate into action. Is it maybe a little bite to his vanity, to see Banner preferred over him? Perhaps a little bit. Tony may have felt a twinge, now and then; after all, it's not like he's ever had trouble finding willing partners on the outside.

...But Schulte took him once. And that was in the office, while he was bent over the desk, the same way he took Banner. And it was Hell. Nothing can prepare you for that. And afterward, the pain lasted for a good week, but he only got one day to rest, and then he had to be up and doing the work Schulte had found for him.

Schulte wanted him working in the office. He'd found out that Tony spoke fluent German, probably because Loki told him, and so he immediately started shoving off all the jobs he didn't want to do himself onto him. That stack of a thousand Daily Reports from Feldwebel Gunther? Those are Stark's to file. And the Quarterly Report for the Chief Inspectorate? Stark will prepare it. – Those Quarterly Reports, by the way, are actually _less_ boring than the reports he used to have to do for Stark. See, Dad always wanted the reports to be accurate, which is the last thing in the world, that the German High Command wants. He's free to make up whatever fairy tales he wants, as long as they're cheerier than the news from the Russian Front. – Who's going to type six copies of those reports? Who's going to clean out the rats' nest behind the filing cabinets? ...Who's going to _move_ the filing cabinets, for that matter? Stark, and Stark, and Stark. Every single, blessed time.

It got so Tony started wondering what the weather was like outside, because it seemed like there was never a time when he was _not_ in the office. Schulte even gave him a place to sleep there, or right next to the office anyway, in what used to be a broom closet (but it was standard understanding that if the Kommandant asked, he slept in Schulte's room). He ate his meals there, and he worked there. And it got so he was almost friends with the guards. At first they were careful about talking around him, but after a while he started to hear things. It probably didn't make any sense not to, since he was going to be the one typing up all the reports anyway.

At first it was just little things: There was a case of TB in the British barrack; some guy was getting a compassionate release so it wouldn't spread. A shipment of potatoes hadn't arrived. There wasn't enough pea flour to substitute, and you could only cut the kriegies' rations so much or the Red Cross would make a fuss; could Obersoldat Koch possibly contact his friends from the Black Market? – Obersoldat Koch could, and did; not that Tony noticed the food improving any. – All the guardsmen's boots were wearing out, was it possible for Schulte to requisition some new pairs? – That one went to Tony. He's the one who filed the requisition form. He's filed that same form three more times since then, and still no boots; apparently that's one of the things there's a shortage of in the Third Reich. – 

After a while, as the men started getting more relaxed, he started hearing more: Embarrassing setback for Project Ragnarok... 10 million reichsmarks down the drain... – _10_ million? I heard 20. ...I heard 100. – Thor von Borsohn, who used to be Der Fuhrer's best friend, suddenly wasn't so welcome around Berghof any more. Loki had to have heard it too (not that he knew for sure, since he never saw him any more). Tony wondered sometimes, if he was starting to feel a little nervous himself. He wondered if he should care.

Then the talk really started to get risky. Assassination attempts... High-ranking Wermacht officers and German officials conspiring. Apparently they weren't so crazy about Der Fuhrer, now that he was leading them straight down the road toward total defeat. At first every time it started, Schulte would look over Tony's way, and he'd shush the others. “Der Kriegsgefangener,” he'd say. “Huete deine Zunge.” (Shut your mouth.) Later on, he gave up even trying. Tony heard about a man named von Stauffenberg. He got executed later on that year, after he set a bomb to go off in a room where Hitler was having a meeting. Apparently before that, he was leading some kind of a resistance effort. There was a man named von dem Bussche involved, another one named von Kleist. Tony's not sure what happened to them. He hasn't heard talk of their being executed. Nobody at Stalag 12 thought any of them would succeed, but there wasn't a man in there... There isn't a man here, who doesn't hope someone will succeed in ending this, so they can get started on rebuilding their homeland.

No one has yet, of course, and it's been a while since Tony's heard about any more assassination plots. Germany's probably going to keep tottering along the way it is right now, with Hitler at the head of it, making his insane decisions, and everything getting less and less stable, and more and more badly patched-together, until Eisenhower, or whoever's in charge of the Allied Forces right now, finally gets here; there's never going to be any change. ...Of course Tony thought the same thing about Stalag 12, when he first got sent to the office, back in February.


	10. The Fall of Schulte

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A moment's carelessness dooms the Unteroffizier, when he makes the mistake of including Tony in a celebration.

Office work was never Tony's specialty, but there are half a million men in the world, and probably twice that number of women and children, who would be grateful if they were where he is right now. Nice warm bed, under a dry roof. Safe, predictable round of duties, and three squares a day (even if the quality leaves a little to be desired). He's a lucky man, and he hopes he's smart enough to know it.

Then one afternoon... June, it had to have been; early June, of 1944. One afternoon, Schulte came in with a spring in his step, and a big bottle clutched in his hand. He'd been in, in the morning, gone out after a call. Speculation was, he was running some kind of an errand in town, and the only question the guards had, was whether it was a black market office supplies kind of an errand, or the kind that might involve getting something decent for dinner, for a change.

He came back, a few hours later, came in, waving that bottle... “Meine Freunde!” – Schulte, calling any of the others his “friends”. That's what tipped Tony off to look at the bottle and, yes, it was open, just like he'd thought it might be. Open, and with a good couple of inches of schnapps already gone. – “Ich bin ein Großvater,” Schulte shouted. “I am a Grandfather.” As if he'd ever given anyone else at the camp reason to care what happened to him or his family, in their off hours.

Soldiers are soldiers, though, wherever you go, and a free drink is a free drink too, for that matter. “Wir gratulieren Zu Ihrem Neuankömmling,” with a hearty clap on the back. “Congratulations on the new baby, Herr Unteroffizier...”

Big hug from Schulte. “ _Gunther_!” – A hug, and some schnapps-scented kisses. – “Gunther, mein Freund!”

“Gunther,” from the men, their eyes trained on that bottle the whole time. “Mein Freund Gunther!”

Hugs all round, and then glasses, brought from ...from the kitchen, probably. ...Glasses brought, and drinks poured, and then there was Schulte ( _Gunther_ ), at Tony's elbow. “Freund Tony, Sie muessen trinken... You must drink to the baby's good health.”

Tony would like to say he refused... No, that's not true. The first drink, was justified. Schulte was his boss; he controlled his fate, and his temper was never the best, even when you didn't cross him. But the second one, and the ones after that... – In his defense, he hadn't had anything to drink since his capture, and that was almost a year earlier. He didn't have much judgment left, after even the first drink. – No, to be honest, there was no excuse, not for drinking with the man who had raped both him and Banner. Looking back, Tony wishes he could say he didn't do it.

He did, of course, though. Up went the glass in a toast (under Schulte's fond, schnapps-y gaze). “Viel Glück, Herr... Ah, _Gunther_...” – That's where the second drink came in: It washed the taste out of his mouth from calling him that. After that, the third and fourth, and the others. came easily.

There was a first bottle. Then Schulte brought out another, that he'd been hiding somewhere (the selfish bastard). After that, someone else brought out a third. Somewhere around the middle of the afternoon, Tony noticed they were pouring out of Loki's decanter. If any of them had had any good sense left, that would have told them they were going to be in big trouble. They didn't of course, though. Not by then.

And then someone suggested that they sing. Probably Tony. In his defense, he was pretty drunk by then, and a guy can do worse things, than sing “Straighten Up and Fly Right” in front of a roomful of Nazis. ...Although it's hard to think of any offhand. “Straighten Up and Fly Right” is his song. And the guards all laughed like hell, because straightening up was the last thing he could do by then. – Or any of them, for that matter. He sang the Laverne part. Laverne's the easiest. And he made some of the guards come up and be the other sisters. Then right after that, Schulte jumped up and insisted on singing “Falling in Love,” from _The Blue Angel_.

Maybe you remember that movie? Marlene Dietrich plays the singer; she ruins the life of an old professor, pillar of the community, or something of that nature. It's a favorite with drag queens. – And if you're not familiar with that term, those are men, usually inverts, who make a living by performing as women. There are riskier things you can do, probably, than to sing a song like that, in public, in the middle of Germany. Singing it with your trousers rolled up, and Dietrich's moony, romantic look on your face (and with the head of the dustmop on your head, to give you the proper curly hairstyle), is pretty difficult. That's what Schulte did. ...That's what he did, while all the guards – and Tony – watched, forgetting that this was a prison camp, and they were under his command (and Tony was a prisoner of course), and that it was still the middle of the day, and they were all on-duty.

After that... – What did they do after that? – ...After that, it gets a bit hazy. ...There were toasts for the men in the kitchen, that's what Tony remembers. Schulte sent some of the schnapps (Loki's schnapps) over to them. They would have had to send a cake or something back, because that's the kind of bastard he was, never doing something for nothing. After that, some of the men outside came in, and they drank too. Pretty well the whole camp came in, the Germans anyway. There was a lot more drinking. Apparently, no one cared that Loki might find out.

He probably wouldn't have cared either, if only Tony hadn't been involved. But he was of course, and Loki cared. Lord, but he cared. Next day about 10:00, while Schulte was at his desk, probably delegating half his work for Tony to do for him, two guards came in and grabbed him, and took him to his office.

Loki's story was, Schulte was making fun of Hitler, when he sang the song at the party. Said he was looking right at the photo on the wall when he sang it, as if anyone there was sober enough to know _where_ he was looking, by that point. Said if he was a man and took his flogging at the camp, Loki would be kind enough not to inform the SS.

SS would have jailed him for being an invert, see. That was the threat. They were killing inverts by then, killing everyone in the concentration camps. – Some kind of “glorious” country, eh? – 

Schulte accepted the beating. Even though the choice was a concentration camp, he still couldn't help being a coward. “Kommandant, bitte verletzen Sie mich nicht.” He was blubbering, almost down on his knees begging. “Please don't hurt me.” – We were in Loki's office, Schulte, and me, and some others. And Loki. I saw him give me a couple of glances, while he was dealing with Schulte. – 

“Ich werde sterben...” Schulte was blubbering. “I will die. Do you want my death on your hands, Kommandant?”

Loki threw another look my way. He was smiling, but it wasn't a happy smile. “What did you think would happen? You insulted the Fuhrer, our glorious Leader.”

A scream: “No! It was just a little song! Ein kleines Lied!”

That's when the guards reached down and grabbed him. They hauled him to his feet. – His bladder had let loose; Tony saw the wet place on his pants, as they dragged him outside. – The door closed behind them, and their footsteps died away. After a long while, Tony could hear the sound of the lash, coming down on his back.

Tony stayed in Loki's office; it was as though Loki wanted him there, as though Tony's reaction was the point of the whole thing, the way it had been when he'd ordered Banner to be raped. After a while, Tony looked at him. “Pretty risky,” he said.

Loki's smile never changed. “Does the balance of power in Germany still confuse you so? Shall I explain it to you, ... _Tony_?”

...Never changed? No, it changed. Toward the end, it grew wider, and there was nothing in his eyes except vengeance, irrational vengeance, that blinded Loki to the fact that Germany might change. – That his place in Germany might change. – Even with him sitting there, and doing his best to destroy anyone who showed him the slightest decency, Tony couldn't help feeling sorry for him. “Yes risky,” he said. “ _You_ of all people, threatening to turn someone in as an invert...”

A flash of anger went across Loki's face (but the smile stayed). “Says the man who can be whatever he wants.” – Was that what it was about? Because Tony wasn't full-invert? – “The Wermacht isn't going to get rid of one of their best officers.”

Kommandant of a Kriegsgefangenenlager. When there were wounded officers all over Germany, and retired ones too, for that matter, who would jump at the opportunity. “I hear Thor's not very popular in Berlin these days.” He was looking at Loki as he said it, looking at him, and thinking... What? What was he thinking? “Loki, take care.”

“You say that?” Loki's voice went soft, and cold, very cold. “I think you are the one who should take care, Kriegsgefangener Stark.” – 

And outside, in the background, the sound of the lash, and Schulte's screams, growing weaker and weaker, as the blows continued. – 

After a while, Loki raised a hand. “You may go,” he said.


End file.
